mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Is anyone else paralyzingly bored with media output of late? I mean, I just read these articles in which the answers have become absolutely uniform…

"Right now, I'm just worried about this camp and Sept. 1 and Michigan football," [ANYONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD] said. "I never really felt like I took any steps backward or anything, I'm just going to continue to work hard like I've been doing."

…and I feel a need to link it while at the same time feeling like I am wasting your time by doing so. This is why I said Vincent Smith was a carrot. Because I am bored out of my mind with fall camp. Vincent Smith is not actually a carrot.

Don't even get me started on Countdown to Kickoff, where the most interesting thing is whether or not Doug Karsch's hair tuft will be there. It wasn't always like this:

SOMEONE GET AN UNUSUAL BICYCLE BEFORE I LOSE MY WILL TO LIVE

I think this deserves Henri, the otter of ennui.

Strangely, I feel better. It could be worse: I could be a journalist trying to scrape something interesting out of this mess. Let's move on.

Ringer seems out. If you hit up Kaleb Ringer's twitter and scroll down a bit you'll get tweets from folk wishing him well on his recovery and Joe Bolden saying they can't wait for him to get back. (Also you'll get Ferris State's logo for some reason.) He mentioned something about going through a trial a few days ago, as well.

He's probably injured, is what I'm saying, and given the tenor of the tweets I'd guess it's something with a long-term recovery period. He already seemed likely to redshirt; now I'd say that probability is close to 100%. With Antonio Poole also out long-term, James Ross is going to see the field.

What I am saying. I may flesh this out into a bigger post later; for now, Her Loyal Sons put together a primer on Notre Dame's 3-4 defense. They have "cat" and "dog" linebackers that align strong and weak (or possibly to field or boundary—the post doesn't make it clear) and those guys are frequently deployed like so:

If this doesn't look familiar I have not been badgering you enough about how 1) moving to the 3-4 does nothing to help Michigan's DL issues and 2) that the 4-3 under is halfway between a traditional even 4-3 and the 3-4. Replace "CAT" with "WDE" and "DOG" with "SAM" and voila. ND will of course line up in a traditional 3-4 look and back that WDE-type-guy into coverage at times, but this assertion…

Unlike the 4-3, in which the defensive line almost exclusively rushes (save for some of the more exotic blitz packages), the setup of the 3-4 shines allows fourth rusher can really come from anywhere. While the Cat may be the pass rushing specialist, that doesn’t mean he will always do so.

…does not jibe with my observations last year, when Mattison flung all manner of zone blitzes at the opponent. The fourth rusher was very frequently not the WDE.

Anyway: 4-3 under personnel crammed into a 3-4 does not use more linebackers and only exacerbates issues with having 280 pound SDE/3techs.

"When Coach Carr retired, he was the one — I actually always liked Iowa — but he told me probably to go with Iowa,” Wienke said. “That’s probably the next-best thing that was going to be for me with my style of play.”

Outrage level here is zero. Telling a recruit he probably doesn't fit is a lot different than allegedly telling the players already on campus they had a green light to transfer. Chances are Rodriguez would have phoned the kid up and said the same thing. I probably wouldn't have brought it up except for the fact that the kid is doing all that he can to honor Carr's guidance:

He's a punter now.

It's neutral you guys. The Alabama game is declared the "best of the Big Ten road schedule" by the Star Tribune [HT: Daily Gopher], which is one thing. Another is Countdown to Kickoff straying dangerously off-message at the 1:20 mark:

do not operate heavy machinery after watching countdown to kickoff

Michigan practiced at Ford Field to prepare for "all that road noise." It's a neutral site you guys. Neutral.

Yeah, let's do that. No, nevermind. Brandon said something to justify the Horror II that demonstrated his inability to grasp anything other than "attention = good." Hey, here's a bunch of CBS guys reminiscing about where they were when the Horror I happened. I bet you're going to go read that right now.

He said many other things as well, some of them appalling like moving the spring game to Ford Field. RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE. /is actually rabbling

The CHL franchises operate as professional franchises. They are a business first and foremost. The scholarship program is great until you play professionally, then you lose it. That's not right.

They trade kids indiscriminately in an effort to make their business successful. They entice kids to come to their programs and when something doesn't work, they are tossed aside like a punctured jockstrap. Teams pay a player $50 a week and own him totally for four or five years.

That's the type of thing that needs to be addressed for the good of these players.

As for the assertion that the CHL is comprised of 60 teams that all operate as individual corporate entities, it sounds an awful lot like the structure of the NHL and last time anyone looked, the NHL had a players' association.

If they are individual entities, the colluding not to pay a class of employees is not kosher. If these guys ever get their act together they would probably get a heap of concessions without even trying.

Etc.: Oklahoma kid will fill one of your commercial breaks at Michigan Stadium this fall, is probably taller than Dennis Norfleet. I want to like this "open letter to Brady Hoke" from Grantland, but open letters are always painful. Hey, writer-guy: Brady Hoke is not reading your stuff. I am. Talk to me, not him. OSU FR Adolphus Washington is 50 pounds heavier than he was when he signed his LOI. That's probably not good from their perspective.

The BTN bus is heading south from East Lansing to Ann Arbor for the 12th and final stop on our grand tour of every Big Ten training camp. Watch the Michigan Preview Show at 10 p.m. ET Friday on BTN/BTN2Go.

-Illinois 2008 (which was really the first "I feel dead inside" game of the RichRod era. Post Wisconsin comeback, good first quarter, and then a never ending avalanche of Juice Williams-fake induced yards)

The thing that has really dried up are the insider practice reports, with the surprising effect that even the fake insiders have laid off writing fake reports, because everyone would immediately know they were fakes.

Can't tell you mgobrethren how many times I read that on other forums/blogs. And almost everytime, go back and read it again, to make sure I'm not missing some sort of hippie youth acronym, while mentally imagining the typist/poster pronouncing it "WAY-LAY."

Michigan practiced at Ford Field to prepare for "all that road noise." It's a neutral site you guys. Neutral.

But it's not neutral in the sense that, say, an NCAA tournament game might be, where you have lots of disinterested observers. The vast majority of the fans at the stadium for this game will be actual supporters of the two teams, and they'll make themselves heard. It will feel like a road game to each team that has the ball (and like a home game to each team that's on defense).

I know the CHL/OHL is kind of a sweatshop league and it's bad for the players, but do we really want it to get better? Wouldn't that just mean even tougher competition for prospects? I feel like the best thing from our perspective is to shine a bright light on the evils and injustices and whatnot of the CHL and never actually push for that to change.

Is that going to be a consistent thing in mgo.licio.us? The use of fruits, vegetables and the general changing of titles and quotes? That's fine if it is, I just keep reading them and then saying to myself, "That can't be right." It'd be better for my personal sanity if I knew going in that the titles and quotes were going to be strangely awesome and unfortunately fake.

I'm actually a bit less insanely excited for the season than I was last year. Last year at this time I was looking at my countdown clock every hour, while I still love the team as much there's a bit less anticipation this year. I attribute it to a lack of news & a new love of soccer which takes up much of my time.

That disdain is nothing new. A close buddy of mine went to grad school at Alabama about 20 years ago, and being a diehard college football fan he would naturally end up talking football with the locals. He said that virtually everybody he talked to had either disdain for UM and its tradition, or were essentially entirely ignorant about it. Parochial doesn't begin to describe those folks down there.

Occasional excess is necessary to remedy the deadening effects of moderation.

Don't like Vanilla? Blame it on Carty, Rosenberg, and Snyder. They were given unprecedented access and abused the privilege. I'm glad "The Fort" is back. The metamorphosis of the MSM from journalists who report into tabloid writers who create news has ruined it for everybody.

I love the idea of the spring game at Fords* Field. Think of the possibilities!!! Make it a show for the kids. Maybe a zany Wolverine mascot to do photo ops. Possibly a Ford Field commemorative throw back jersey honoring Harlan Huckleby or Will Campbell or somebody, for the contributions of the city of Detroit to Michigan football history.

I am completely with Brian. The articles coming out don't really have much of anything. New and substantive content is almost non-existent. There is either fluff or coach-speak or a million variations on a theme. I'm looking forward to the season. The agony for me is that I will miss a bunch of the Alabama game due to a wedding reception I can't duck out of. By halftime, either Michigan will be out of it, or be in the game. (well duh.) At any rate, by that time, I'll be done eating, and will be able to find a TV at the bar to watch the balance of the game.

I guess this ennui is a sign that I need to get a life and stop following Michigan football obsessively.

On a different note, when can we expect to hear more, or better yet, see pictures, of the Crisler Center renovations?

“Top to bottom Michigan is about excellence, greatness. You have my pledge I will carry forward the excellence of Michigan football." Jim Harbaugh, December 30, 2014

is bad and conditions your brain to view ideas and events through the lens of the editorial power structure influencing the content and views of the news. I check websites from both sides of the political aisle to get a more complete picture, using bias filters as a counterweight against the claims I read from any so-called fount of information.

Agreed...it's not a road game. It's neutral! Hell, at one point we had solid more tickets than they had.

Also, the people that can travel to these guys, afford the tickets, etc. aren't the people that make noise. It's not going to be that loud. Not when you've played in the UTL game.

“True loyalty is that quality of service that grows under adversity and expands in defeat. Any street urchin can shout applause in victory, but it takes character to stand fast in defeat. One is noise — the other, loyalty.”

Fans at bowl games are quieter, but I don't know if that will hold true here. For bowl games, you have people traveling on short notice, which generally means the well-heeled part of the fanbase. Here, tickets are pricey but fans have had a couple of years to figure out how to pay for it. I think you'll see more "regular" fans there.